At parties and at restaurants, it is not uncommon for the guests to be served pitchers of beer, soda, or water. Where the beer is of a keg or draft variety, it is typical to find that there is a large head of foam at the top; where the pitcher is filled with soda or water, there usually are included ice cubes floating at the top. The pitchers most often utilized, however, offer several disadvantages: a) when used for pouring the keg or draft beer, what first gets poured is the foam, so that the glass which is filled ends up with some liquid, and a good deal of foam; b) when the pouring is of the soda or water, the ice cubes tend to block the spout, restricting the flow of the liquid --raising the angle to try to increase the liquid flow only tends to dislodge the blocked ice cubes, with a common result that the ice cubes flow into the glass, sometimes to the extent of having more ice cubes in the glass than the liquid; c) the designs of the pitchers do not readily lend themselves to be stored, one atop the other; and d) they are not conducive to later refrigeration for subsequent use because of the open-nature of the top--aside from being easily spillable if accidentally knocked over.
While pitchers sold for home use typically come with a cover (so as to reduce the tendencies for spillage if knocked over, and so as to permit stored refrigeration without fear of something being knocked into the liquid), they continue to suffer the disadvantages associated with the ice cube blockage of the pouring spout when the pitcher is used for the pouring of soda, iced tea, iced coffee and the like.